First attempt at Basketball

OhEddie

CC welcomed...

Well, I have finally bought a lens that I can call "pro" glass. The Nikon 70-200 2.8 VR.
So I thought I would challenge myself by going out to the local HS Basketball tournament.
I also used my 50mm 1.8 for some shots.

The first thing I noticed shooting in a HS gym is that you really gotta pay attention to the WB.
I tried several of the WB presets on my D300 and my first attempts were rather orange looking. I ended up getting the best results, IMO, with the camera on Auto WB. I guess these HS Gyms vary quite a bit, but can I expect Auto WB to be my best bet in most gyms? How do you do the "Take a shot - set the custom WB" on a D300?

The next thing I noticed was how cluttered the backgrounds were going to be. Not just because of all the people in the stands, but they had stuff on all the walls and banners hanging from the rafters.

The third thing I noticed was how fast the ball moved around. What a challenge!

Anyway, here are a few of the better results.

(But for a Nikon D300 and the pro glass they are not as sharp as others I have seen with the same set-up. What am I missing here, JohnG? :scratch )



#1


#2



#3



#4



#5



#6



#7 - Can you believe they called charging on this shot


#8

johng

These are pretty good shots. Sharpness isn't bad at all. Did you apply any USM to them? If not, that's the issue. I'm a canon guy so I can't help you set custom WB but to me that's the biggest issue with the series. As I would expect your WB is different in every shot. But you've got some good action and 6 & 8 are the only ones I'd consider soft. Otherwise really good. Another possible thought besides USM is if you're usinng in-camera noise reduction rather than computer software.

Do I take it then the other basketball galleries from earlier dates in your page were just pre-70-200? Or are these few galleries the first ever bball you've done period? If so, you're off to a fantastic start.

OhEddie

John,

Thanks for the reply.

Yes, these were all shot last week at the same tournament with the new lens. All my first time shooting BB. I'm usually outdoors at Baseball games.

What's USM? Is that a Canon thing or a general photo term I'm not familiar with.

Also, I have no noise reduction applied to any of thses shots. I varied the ISO from 800 to 3200 to see what I could get away with. I'll have to get use to how fast things move and change in a basketball game. In baseball, I know the game so much better. I know when to set up for the steal at 2nd base, and stuff like that.

Well, thanks again for the props. I'm going to have to work hard if I'm ever going to qualify to get one of those cool "Sports Shooter" logo's like you

johng

OhEddie wrote:

John,

What's USM? Is that a Canon thing or a general photo term I'm not familiar with.

Actually Both
In general terms it stands for UnSharpMask. It's a sharpening technique. Most photo editing packages have it. Does a much better job than "sharpen" functions - mostly because you can control the several parameters used. The parameters that work best tend to vary by camera - and, of course, personal preference. Do some looking around - or maybe one of the D300 shooters here can recommend the values they use. You'll be surprised what a difference it can make.

In Canon vernacular it stands for UltraSonicMotor (the lens focusing mechanism used by Canon).

bikingbets

Eddie,

These are nice! As you've noted, indoor basketball is a challenge but very rewarding when you get a good one.

I'm excited to get going with the season, and hopefully I'll be posting some soon.

Keep on shooting!
Betsy

Matt336

A couple of tips for you.

1. The floor is tilting in some of these, I would straighten some of the photos.

2. Is high ISO noise reduction enabled on your camera? If so disable it, that will make them a tad soft. I use noise ninja (I think it is around $40 for the photoshop plug-in and you can download noise profiles meant for your camera as well) and it has USM adjustments in the plug-in as well.

3. Are these cropped at all? I always try to fill the frame.

Setting a custom white balance is pretty easy. Set your WB to PRE and hold the WB button until PRE starts blinking, then fill your frame with a gray card (I prefer to have it unfocused) and hit the shutter button. If you are shooting in manual make sure your exposure is correct when doing this. You can get a gray card from any camera store and some have recommended coffee filters although I have never tried that method.

Hope that helps. Your photos look a heck of a lot better than my first basketball shots.

OhEddie

Thanks for the reply Matt,

I agree, I forgot to straighten before I cropped.
I always crop to a 5X7 and try to leave a little space for further cropping by the customer.

I got the camera out and looked for the PRE setting. Yup, there it is. I'll give it a shot. I have an 18% gray card in the back of an old Kodak darkroom book.

Thanks again.

Greyhound Rick

Hi Eddie,

I really like your photos and encourage you to keep shooting! Youre doing great!

I shoot greyhound racing and have a D300 and 70-200. Have you ever experimented with the Picture Controls?

I would recommend that you try setting the sharpness to at least "7". The default is "3" which is pretty soft for sports. Even with portraits I like to go to around "5".

I also set the saturation at "1" to give the color a little more pop. Ive tried setting the contrast up to "1" but prefer the "0" setting for that.

With regard to Unsharp Mask. I use Capture NX, which in my opinion, has the best RAW (NEF) converter by far of any of the post processing software and the settings I usually use are:

INTENSITY 15-25
RADIUS 6-8
THRESHOLD 0-1

I dont use the unsharp mask all the time, but have started using it more recently. It really helps improve the sharpness of the image!

Photoshop DOES NOT recognize Nikon Picture Controls during the RAW conversion which is one of the reasons I use Capture NX.

I use my 85mm f/1.4 lens at night (usually at 1.6) because of the low light and even though its not a sports lens it does very well. Love the extra light and the faster shutter speed it affords!

Hope this helps and continued sucess with your shooting!

take care,

Rick